Sunday, January 20, 2013

Cleantech News from CleanTechnica

Right from the start of his speech, Siemens CEO Peter Löscher delivered some forceful statements: “Environmentally friendly technology is not just a profitable sideline — it is a vital part of our business. It certainly is a rapidly growing market driven by huge global demand.” Yes, it is. If a country’s political leaders or business leaders ignore that fact, they are essentially relegating their country or business to the second division.

“It’s good business, and it’s the business of the future. Technologies that save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions can help to grow the economy, too. And we believe that the private sector has a responsibility to help to drive this.”

For those of you interested in reading or sharing key points of the speech in text format, here are some more top quotes from it:

“Energy-efficient solutions and technologies from our environmental portfolio offer a three-fold advantage. They benefit our customers who boost their own success through low energy costs and higher productivity. They benefit future generations by helping to preserve and improve their environment. And last but not least, they benefit our own company by enabling us to tap attractive markets and generate profitable goals.

“Another question occasionally is, ‘do these technologies really make a difference in terms of protecting the environment?’ Again, we know the answer. Let me quote one more figure: last year, technology from Siemens’ environmental portfolio reduced the CO2 emissions of our customers [by] more than 330 billion tons. That’s roughly equivalent to six times the annual emissions of all of New York City.” That was a bit of a shocking fact to me. Clearly, that’s something for Siemens to be proud of, and something for other companies to aspire to. And that’s just what Peter emphasized:

“And this is just the efforts of one company. Imagine the impact if this was replicated across the world’s technology providers.”

For the rest of Peter Löscher’s excellent speech, check out the video above. I’d say it’s worth a full watch.

Full Disclosure: my trip to Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week was funded by Masdar. That said, I was completely free to cover what I wanted throughout the week, and at no point did I feel under pressure to cover specific events, Masdar, or any other corporations in any particular way.

Er…probably not. However, just a few years ago the idea of transferring ultra-massive quantities of seawater out of the ocean and putting it to use on land was a lot less realistic than it is today, mainly because of the massive amount of energy required to pump, desalinate and transport it. What has changed is the availability of low cost, low impact renewable energy technologies, as demonstrated by a new renewable energy desalination project in Masdar, Abu Dhabi.

The new project, which aims to establish a commercially viable renewable energy-powered desalination plant by 2020, was launched as part of the closing ceremonies for the first annual International Water Summit in Masdar, which was part of the sixth annual World Future Energy Summit and first annual Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.

“While the initial focus, particularly in the Middle East, was to provide a reliable source of fresh water to ensure the beginning and blossoming of the region’s economy, the emphasis now includes making desalination a sustainable and environmentally responsible industrial solution…not only for the desalination industry, but also for the continued development and success of the region’s community at large.”

The renewable energy trend is particularly important for the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) region of the Middle East, which accounts for about half the world’s desalinated water.

Sommariva also notes that the increasing use of renewable energy for desalination must also be balanced against the availability of more renewable energy to the general grid. In other words, for renewable energy-powered desalination to make sense there must be a parallel effort to build more renewable energy capacity into the overall grid, as well as new process improvements that enable desalination facilities to operate with greater efficiency.

It should also be noted that fossil fuel-exporting nations that also have considerable renewable energy resources would be in a better position to sustain their export operations by using more renewable energy at home.

A Note of Caution on Sustainable Desalination

Last fall at the Sustainable Cities – Sustainable Development conference in Abu Dhabi, Dr. Hassan Fath of The Masdar Institute also cautioned against assuming that renewable energy is the only obstacle to sustainable desalination.

According to Dr. Fath, generating renewable energy (in this case, solar thermal power) to run desalination facilities is only part of the challenge. Each region of the globe will face its own particular set of circumstances based on the characteristics of local seawater:

"For the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] region, thermal desalination (MSF/MED) is and will continue as the leading technology. The reason is the well-known 'four Hs' of the Gulf water – high temperature, high salinity, high turbidity and high marine life. In addition, the presence of radioactive material because of warships and nuclear power plants, still needs to be addressed.”

Dr. Fath also noted that extreme phenomena such as the “red tide” algae blooms can cause desalination plants to shut down. High levels of boron that result from the reverse osmosis process are also a concern.

Say, What About the U.S.A.?

Meanwhile, the U.S. hasn’t exactly been sitting still when it comes to desalination improvements. For example, a team of researchers at MIT has been tackling the desalination energy efficiency angle with a filtration system based on atom-thin sheets of graphene.

One of the more interesting developments is a project at the University of Colorado in Denver that uses microbes to treat wastewater while generating both electricity and hydrogen gas, which can be used to power a desalination component for a single integrated facility.